Howard Goldblatt would probably be one of China's most well-read men--except
that he's based in Boulder, Colorado.
The University of Colorado professor is, if not the most prolific translator
of modern Chinese fiction into English, then certainly the most well-known,
bringing the work of authors including Wang Shuo and Mo Yan to life for
readers in North America, Europe, and elsewhere.
When Goldblatt first began his work, the People's Republic of China was not
open to the outside, and students conducting their academic work in Chinese
literature were confined both to studying in Taiwan and to Chinese classics.
As a result, when it came time for his Ph.D. at the University of Indiana,
Goldblatt chose modern literature (from the 1930s and 1940s).
His earliest translation work for publication found him, not vice-versa.
Goldblatt describes the early work as being contemporary fiction from Taiwan
for university publishing houses. "No one sponsored it, and it didn't make
me any money," he said.
It wasn't until he traveled to northeastern China on a research grant in
1986-87 that he began to discover some of the writers with whom he currently
cooperates. "I discovered several writers that I really liked a lot and one
of them was Mo Yan," Goldblatt said, who added that he "stumbled upon 'Red Sorghum,'" which brought more fame to director Zhang Yimou and actress Gong
Li in its film form than it did to the author.
After completing a translation of the novel, it was Amy Tan who suggested
that he submit it to a publisher. The book didn't begin to sell well until
a still photo from the film was used on the cover. "None of the books I've
ever been involved with have sold terribly well," Goldblatt said. Ten
thousand copies in hardcover or softcover is considered a good run, he said.
As passionate and skilled as he is about the work, Goldblatt is the first to
say that much of the nuance in translating Chinese literature is lost, and
he lets it go. Creating a work that is ultimately a good read remains his
primary task with any translation. "I simply don't like novels, ever, that
turn into scholarly or academic treatises," which is why novels or
anthologies that he has edited are rarely accompanied by footnotes or
copious explanations of Chinese puns or metaphors.
"The range of languages, from cool street talk to a parody of officialese,
is just not going to come across to the American reader," Goldblatt said,
speaking especially of authors such as Mo Yan and Wang Shuo, particularly the latter,
whose "Please Don't Call Me Human" will be published in translation later
this year.
Indeed, Goldblatt's work seems to be a labor of love, and tough love at
that. Even as its most enthusiastic translator, he is also one of the most
vocal critics of the current state of Chinese literature.
He refuses to take the side of those in China who call for a Chinese author
to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. "My sense is that it has virtually
lost its significance as a literary prize in the eyes of many, many Chinese,
and the attitude is it doesn't matter who it is, just give it to them," he
said.
The material currently being produced by Chinese writers, even those with
whom he has chosen to work, needs improvement before any of them can be
seriously considered by the Nobel committee. "I think there are some
serious problems with the Chinese writers. I think they knock their novels
off a little too fast. They tend not to spend the hard time of revising, of
re-writing, of getting everything just right," Goldblatt said.
To illustrate his point, Goldblatt mentioned a recent novel in which a
prostitute takes money from a client and stuffs it into her bra. Two lines
later, she waves goodbye to the client, this time with the money protruding
from her waving hand. Goldblatt says writers aren't the only ones to blame.
"They don't have any editors [in China] and editors don't have any status
there," he added.
Goldblatt believes that Chinese writers sometimes fail to bring the people
in their books to life. "I think that if there is a particular weakness in
Chinese literature it is in characterization. It's hard to get characters
who almost come to life, you get some, but not enough. I think Chinese
literature would be better served by more complex, more evocative
characters," he said.
Beyond matters of technique, Goldblatt feels Chinese writers need to look
farther than just the world they know for their subject matter. "I read a
lot of translated literature from other countries, from Japan, and from
Indonesia, and even though the stories are set there they could easily be set somewhere else," versatility generally not found in
Chinese works.
Even if the quality of authors' writing were to improve, the work might fall
upon blind eyes. "American readers don't read translated literature very
much, Goldblatt said, citing studies by industry watchers including
Publishers' Weekly.
Still, Goldblatt sees improvement among the top writers, and seems fond of
Mo Yan's "Republic of Wine," published by Arcade Publishing in April. In
the novel, Mo corresponds with One Pint Li, a citizen of the Liquorland, and eventually becomes part of the story himself. Li, whom Goldblatt
describes as "a hack," must have also been challenging for Mo, who had to
recreate the style of an aspiring but unskilled writer. "It must be
terribly difficult for a writer who writes well to write poorly," Goldblatt
said.
Goldblatt notes that it seems there is one exception to the dismal sales figures of Chinese novels: those books with a gay theme. Two novels from Taiwan, "Crystal Boys" and "Notes from a Desolate Man" both
touch on gay topics and sold significantly better than other works,
including those with a film tie-in. "Crystal Boys" is "not not a gay novel,
but mainly about fathers and sons and happens to deal with male hookers,"
Goldblatt said. "Notes from a Desolate Man" was named one of the best books
of the year by the New York Times, Goldblatt said.
Still, the allure of the dissident author often proves too much for foreign
intelligentsia. Goldblatt admits that the tastes of his target audience are
not the same as those reaching for John Grisham or Stephen King. "If
there's no conflict, if there's no perversion, it's going to
have less value in the readership that I'm interested in grabbing hold of,"
he said. It's not a taste that Goldblatt has entirely acquired. "Every
time I publish a book [reviewers] ask me, 'is this banned in China?'" He
added that among publishers, "I think there probably is a conscious,
selective impulse, to go for the nasty."
If it's not perverted, then stereotypes prevail when it comes to China
books. "Bound feet continue to sell, historical novels about China continue
to sell," Goldblatt noted.
Goldblatt continues to look for new writers. While he has yet to read any
of her material, Goldblatt said that Shanghai writer Mian Mian has piqued
his interest. Her novel "La La La" was described to him as being
"essentially a novel about bodily fluids." Of new prospects, Goldblatt must
posit the same questions that publishing houses do when they see a promising
new work: "Is this a novel or is this a writer?" It's a question he
continues to ask.
All of these translations by Howard Goldblatt are available at Amazon.com:
Red Sorghum
Republic of Wine
Garlic Ballads
Crystal Boys
Playing for Thrills
Notes From a Desolate Man
Black Snow
Chairman Mao Would Not be Amused
China's Crisis, China's Hope
